Glory of the Climb – The Stale Meta: Top 5 AD Carries

In the last article I talked about how Giant’s Belt has changed the landscape of top lane, strengthening Champions that can make use of buying it on their first back and putting champs that want to focus on offence at a disadvantage. Bot lane is in a much more fragile spot; Giant’s Belt is warping the landscape by making AD Carries pretty much useless until they can get 3-4 major items. Let me explain, as there are a few factors that play into this phenomenon.

1. The most obvious one is that attack speed was nerfed across the board while health was buffed.

2. Bloodthirster has become a more common first item for ADC’s because of how good it is in lane and when you have to farm an extra ten minutes per game to get to four items, you need to be able to go toe-to-toe with the other ADC who is also farming. This has lead to a decrease in rushing Infinity Edge, which gives more consistent damage due to higher base AD + Crit.

3. Last Whisper does not pack as much of a punch as it used to because of the lack of armor stacking.

4. Positioning yourself to do the small amount of damage you do is harder because of the amount of common Bruisers with gap closers and cc (Vi, Amumu, Hecarim, Jarvan, Xin Zhao, Malphite, Renekton, Shen, Elise, etc).

5. Blade of the Ruined King does not provide as much damage as BT if you rush it unless your target has 2500-3000 hp.

6. The last factor is that while AS was nerfed on items, AS reductions were not nerfed on items or spells.

ADC’s are definitely between a rock and a hard place right now and a lot of pro players have spoken up about this being a problem; some even saying ADC’s may get phased out because Bruisers are just that good. Could adding two more Bruisers to the team, instead of the ADC and Support, really be a net benefit to team composition? Only time will tell…

The Best ADC’s, for now, and Why.

Right now I feel that Range and an Escape are the biggest factors for soloqueue success, so I will use that to determine my rankings. Remember, this list is constructed for the ease of the soloqueue community and is not intended to mirror the competitive scene.

#5. Kog’Maw and Vayne

Why are the two Champions that have built-in HP% damage at the bottom of the list in the stacking HP meta? Well I am sure it is no surprise that Kog and Vayne have the weakest laning phases of all the other ADC’s. They are champions that are high risk/high reward, which is something you can’t always count on in soloqueue. If you don’t get counter-picked by the opposing ADC or Support, get camped and ganked all day by the jungler, and manage to get a decent CS. If all this comes to pass, then these champions are absolute wrecking balls to the brick-wall Bruisers running all over the place- but that’s counting on a lot of things to go your way. Throw in the fact that Kog has no escape and Vayne has Tumble, which really isn’t an escape either, your mechanical skills need to be through the roof for you to pilot these champions to a win. While they have a lot of adversity I feel they outshine the other ranged champs without escapes like Ashe and Varus.

#4. Â Graves andÂ Â Twitch

Ok, why do you keep listing two Champions at once? Well I feel that ADC’s are all virtually the same right now. They don’t have a lot of niche versatility. They do damage at range and hopefully have an escape for repositioning. Graves and Twitch share the same tier because I think they are the most ability-aggressive ADC’s at the moment. Pairing them with a Taric or Leona should yield good results. Graves has a true escape and provides utility with Smoke Screen, while Twitch has stealth, true damage, a slow, and long range. I feel like it’s splitting hairs trying to decide which is better than the other, so I stick them in the same place; especially since they both fall short of the next 3.

#3. Â Ezreal

Ezreal is just all around a solid ADC. He has good range and poke with his Q. He can buff his team’s AS with his W. He has the best true escape because it goes over walls instead of through them, which gives it less fail potential; his ultimate is global and just overall a solid skill. There is nothing wrong with this champion. I have heard Doublelift say time and time again that Ezreal has no weaknesses and that he is solid through and through. I am a firm believer of this. He’s a safe pick and a good one at that.

#2. Â Miss Fortune

Miss Fortune is still living off the royalties from the League of Cleavers. She is in a unique spot because her ult lets her bypass the Attack SpeedÂ hindranceÂ that all the other ADC’s suffer from in the early game. Bullet Time does incredible AoE damage to the entire enemy team from a massive range, all in two seconds, allowing MF to see immediate results from her item purchases. This gives her a unique/excellent early game and allows her to transition into a traditional ADC later on. The range on Bullet Time combined with the MS from her passive also allows her to position well and remain relatively safe till a fight is over. She also pairs well with any support with a cc (Sona, Leona, Zyra, Lux, Nami, Taric)Â and can almost always get a kill at level six in lane.

#1. Â Caitlyn

My reasoning behind Caitlyn being #1 is simply because her range is 650. She is incredibly hard to catch as an opposing Bruiser or Jungler. If you can play Caitlyn well and make it to 30 minutes, you will carry your team. She has 100 range over all the other carries (which is a huge deal) and she has a true escape, a snare, and can even contribute to a fight from great distances with Ace in the Hole when she has been chased away. Her kit is a bit under par compared to others, not sporting any kind of AS steroid, magic damage, or debuffs, but she is literally impossible to get to and if she is running Cleanse (which she will be) you can just go into the kitchen and start sticking forks up your ass because that is literally the only recourse you will have as she shoots you with a net and proceeds to kite you into oblivion. Even since Nunu got nerfed, she’s still an obnoxious bitch and I think she shines the most out of all the ADC’s lategame, which is the only point in the game they shine right now. Pick her, win your lane, farm it out, and carry hard.

Honorable Mentions

My Top “5” list has 7 Champs on it but we can squeeze a few more. These champs all do really cool and unique things but at the end of the day their kits kind of detract from what an ADC does and wants to do. Having four cool skills is awesome but when you do 99% of your damage with an auto attack, it’s kind of hindrance to your design. These champs are listed in a specific order.

#6.Â Â Draven – Pair him with an aggro support and you can snowball soloqueue.

#7.Â Â Tristana – Late Game her range can rival Cait’s, she just has a much more fragile early game + mid-game slump.

#8.Â Â Ashe – 600 range + global stun. Her ult can out-right win games, but again she has a weak laning phase.